Emmanuel Macron is trying to “seduce” Xi Jinping with a getaway to the Pyrenees Mountains. Dancing, cheese and ham, with the wives. The gifts given to the Chinese leader | VIDEO

The Élysée leader said he was looking forward to “fruitful and friendly discussions” in the Hautes-Pyrénées, in southwestern France. This escapade is intended to allow a more direct dialogue between the two heads of state regarding the war in Ukraine or the commercial disagreements between Paris and Beijing, reports France-Presse, according to news.ro.

The two presidents, accompanied by their wives, arrived on Tuesday afternoon in the Tourmalet Pass, a mythical ascent of the Tour de France, where – at 2,115 meters above sea level – the conditions were wintry, despite the end of the season at the La Mongie ski resort.

This setting contrasts with that at the Élysée Palace, where, from a lavish reception to a lavish banquet, they made no attempt to hide their differences on trade between the European Union (EU) and China.

The song of the three-hole whistle and the accordion rang out on a heavy snowfall, and dancers in traditional costumes danced with their hands raised in front of the two heads of state, full of smiles, sheltered under the big black umbrellas. Peng Liyuan, Xi Jinping’s wife, set the pace, France-Presse notes.

Cheese, ham and the Tour de France

Emmanuel Macron asked for a photo as a souvenir before entering the high-altitude restaurant of Eric Abadie, his animal farmer friend, and presenting his Chinese counterpart with Pyrenean wool blankets, a bottle of Armagnac, berets and a yellow jersey of the Tour de France.

“I know you like sports. We would be delighted to have Chinese cyclists in the Tour (of France),” Macron told Xi, who was back on a state visit to France after the 2019 one.

Xi Jinping promised to promote French ham and admitted that he “likes cheese a lot”.

Emmanuel Macron called for a “framework of fair competition” and congratulated himself, after the talks, that he had saved French cognac from the threat of “temporary” Chinese customs duties.

Invited to show a united front on the continent, the president of the European Commission (EC) Ursula von der Leyen warned that the EU will take “firm decisions” in order to “protect its economy” and denounced an influx of massively subsidized Chinese electric vehicles.

“The so-called “problem of China’s overcapacity” does not exist”, Xi Jinping replied dryly.

Regarding Ukraine, he wanted consensus and reaffirmed his will to act for a political solution.

He expressed his support for an “Olympic truce” on the occasion of the Olympic Games in Paris this summer, also promoted by Emmanuel Macron.

According to a French diplomatic source, this truce could serve in Ukraine to launch a more political process, after more than two years of war.

But Paris, which has been insisting for a year that Beijing exert pressure on Russia to end the war, wants to be “lucid” in the limited chances of a rapid progress, in the context in which the Chinese president remains the main ally of his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, on who will receive it soon.

Seduction

The stage in the Pyrenees could, the French delegation believes, favor “an honest and friendly discussion” in these thorny subjects.

This mountain corner is “directly linked to the very personal history” of Emmanuel Macron, according to his entourage.

He turns seven years since he was elected president for the first time on Tuesday and spent many holidays between Bagnères-de-Bigorre and La Mongie, with his grandparents, to whom he was very attached.

The visit to the Pyrenees is a kind of response to the tea ceremony he shared last year in Canton, in the official residence where the father of the Chinese president lived when he was the governor of this region in southern China.

Criticism of Macron’s diplomacy

“Emmanuel Macron’s diplomacy has always relied, perhaps excessively, on the power of seduction,” says Bertrand Badie, a specialist in international relations at Sciences Po.

“He always had the idea that his personal relationships could overturn structures,” adds Badie.

However, “Xi Jinping (…) is not really a big sentimentalist,” warns the researcher.

The candidate of the Socialist Party (PS) in the European elections in June, Raphaël Glucksmann, denounced the “friendly tone” of this official visit.

“The man who deports Uyghurs, who represses Hong Kong residents and Tibetans is not our friend,” he denounced to RTL.

His right-wing opponent François-Xavier Bellamy of Les Républicains (LR) recalled Beijing’s “mix” and its “aggressive strategy to bury our economy”.

Political scientist Bertrand Badie agrees that regarding Xi Jinping’s China “it’s really hard work”, because, until now, no one “has found the key to European-Chinese relations”.

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